Like 2 sides of a coin self-consciousness can be either good or bad depending on how one uses it. Unfortunately, there is no physical wall that separates the good from the bad side. So, a person can easily fall into the bad side of self-consciousness while attempting to get into the good side. The good side can be defined as the healthy way to live out your emotions. While the bad side can be defined as the negative way of handling your emotions. It is important to distinguish emotions from feelings. Emotions are formed at the spot, as a response to a stimulus and some experts are able to measure emotions. Whereas feelings are formed over time in our minds (mental associations) consequently measuring them is not possible, at least not in an accurate way yet. The importance of self-awareness of our emotions goes beyond the individual, it is also necessary to create healthy social relationships. Self- emotions appear in our lives around our second year of life and only after we develop self-recognition. In other words, if the infant can not even recognize himself in a picture or in the mirror, there is no way he can have self-awareness of his/her emotions. Nevertheless, such infant does experience emotions, he/she just has no reach yet the “self-consciousness of emotions” milestone. It is also worthy to note that self-consciousness of emotions develops in 2 stages. The first group is composed of embarrassment, empathy, and envy. While the second group is conformed of guilt, shame, and pride. This second group develop only after the toddler has capacity to understand some basic social rules that allow him/her to express either (1) shame (for failing a task), (2) guilt (of doing something not acceptable), or (3) pride (for successfully achieving a required chore).
Bottomline, being aware of your emotions and having discipline (to not fall into the bad or extreme side) is a must because only when you know about the problem, you can do something about it. Awareness and knowledge are the first step, honesty is the second and discipline & consistency are the third step in order to be on the good side of self-consciousness of emotions.
